When we think of spiders, us Brits tends to imagine the black and brown creatures that thrive in dry corners and give us a fright when we least expect it.Australians, the other hand, are privy to much more exciting sights, as these pictures of the 'peacock spider' prove.While it may be eight-legged like every other spider, this one has an impressive mating ritual to attract a partner.
It shows off a rainbow of colours to impress nearby females by fanning out two brightly patterned flaps at the back of his body.Displaying its spectrum of shades in an attempt to attract the attention of the less vibrant brown spiders, the creature reveals hues of orange, yellow, green and blue.Also known as a Moratus Vilans, amateur photographer Jurgen Otto originally spotted the colourful creature in the wild.However, as it is only 4mm long, he found it easier to capture images in his Sydney home.
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An artist who has a new view of the world has created awe-inspiring tiny 'planets' from our most iconic landmarks.
Alexandre Duret-Lutz took a series of stunning photographs of some of the world's most famous buildings and made them into montages of miniature worlds.
Suspended in space, the tiny spheres make our most loved landmarks look even more impressive, with tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum towering over the minions below.
This breathtaking picture captures the seconds before a daring surfer is engulfed by a monster wave.The spectacular shot was taken by surfer-turned-photographer Clark Little, who captured the incredible scene on Ke Iki beach, in Hawaii.The massive shorebreak was more than 8ft tall but luckily the surfer survived unscathed.
Such shorebreaks, caused when a wave hits the shallow water at the sand, are powerful enough to drag down unsuspecting surfers and have been known to cause neck and back injuries as it breaks.But Mr Little, from Oahu, Hawaii, is not afraid to jump into the water to capture the incredible power of the ocean on camera.The 40-year-old, who has been a photographer for just two years, leans on his 35 years' surfing experience to knows when to be in the right place at the right time.His efforts can involve actually getting into the waves themselves, which can be up to 5ft high.Mr Little uses a Nikon camera, which is protected with a waterproof housing and takes pictures at nine frames per second.While taking the pictures seems fraught with danger, the father-of-two says that he knows the ocean and his limits.He said: 'I just use my surfing experience and go in the waves.'I love the feeling of getting into the waves, I am addicted to shooting the shorebreaks but you need to know your limits and the ocean.'
This is the moment when an unsuspecting swan is ferociously attacked in mid-flight by an eagle who is half its size.The adult trumpeter swan was flying over a river when the bald eagle swooped out of nowhere bearing its talons.The eagle, with its massive two metre-wide wings outstretched, landed on the swan.
But remarkably after a five second struggle the plucky swan escaped the eagle's clutches and managed to fly down to the water.Smarting from its defeat the eagle, with its distinctive dark brown and white feathers, headed for some nearby trees.The stunning spectacle was captured by an amateur photographer Kelly Munday.The mum-of-two was watching the swan fly with a mate over the Lakelse River, in Terrace, British Columbia, when the eagle attacked.
She said: 'I was photographing the swans when the bald eagle came out of nowhere and attacked one of them.'They struggled for about five seconds and then the swan broke free, flew down to the water and seemed to be fine.'It was a spectacular few seconds and I was lucky enough to capture it.'The bald eagle normally eats smaller prey such as seagulls and fish but is known for its opportunist nature.Grahame Madge, a conservation spokesman for the RSPB, said: 'The bald eagle, America's national symbol, is often believed to be a supreme predator.'However, these 'magnificent' birds are usually happiest feeding on fish or scavenging for carrion along the tideline.'It was clearly an ambitious bird if it felt able to take on a bird the size of a trumpeter swan - one of the few birds even larger than a bald eagle.'
He is so tiny, visitors often assume he's a stuffed toy.Standing at 59cm tall, if Koda the horse wants an equal he has to turn to the vetinary cat for company.The 'American miniature' horse - who suffers the double-whammy of being born a dwarf - has had a bout of health problems caused by his size, but he is now recovering and enjoying the life of a pampered pet.
He is so tiny, visitors often assume he's a stuffed toy.Standing at 59cm tall, if Koda the horse wants an equal he has to turn to the vetinary cat for company.The 'American miniature' horse - who suffers the double-whammy of being born a dwarf - has had a bout of health problems caused by his size, but he is now recovering and enjoying the life of a pampered pet.The cheeky 'American miniature' horse was always meant to be small but at birth vets soon realised he was dinky even for his breed.'He was no bigger than a cat,' said his vet Andy Lynch. 'He was diagnosed as a dwarf soon after birth.'Koda's condition is rare and Lynch is amazed that he's still alive and kicking at 13-months-old despite a torrent of health problems.Brave Koda has had lots of surgery to correct his stumpy, buckled legs but that hasn't helped his peculiar face. His lower jaw juts out and he has bulging eyes, upturned nostrils and a wrinkled nose.'He had a punky look, a fuzzy forelock and his mane stuck up like a mohawk,' Dr Lynch said.
Koda's poor health prognosis left Dr Lynch with little doubt he should be put down.But veterinary nurse Karen Stephenson, 23, was astounded by the resilience and spirit of the pint-sized pony.'I'd never seen a miniature horse and I just thought him amazing,' she said.'I fell in love with him as soon as I saw him and thought he deserved a go at some good quality life, so I took him on.'Dr Lynch has performed about £5,000 worth of leg surgery on Koda, but his total vet's bill is expected to top £15,000.The next step is extensive dentistry to remove protruding adult teeth that won't fit in his little mouth.He has recovered well from every operation so far.'He's very brave and takes his medicine like a little man,' said Dr Lynch.'He's everyone's friend but he's also got a very naughty streak and he'll chew just about anything,' he added.
It looks like a catastrophic explosion in the latest sci-fi action thriller but this awe-inspiring image is actually based on the latest state-of-the-art space imaging.
The artist’s impression, inspired by the sharpest ever views of the supergiant star Betelgeuse, reveals an enormous plume of gas almost as big as our own Solar System blasting outwards.
The discoveries, revealed by the latest techniques on the European Space Agency’s Very Large Telescope, could help unravel why the mammoth plasma ball spews out material at such an incredible speed.
It looks like a catastrophic explosion in the latest sci-fi action thriller but this awe-inspiring image is actually based on the latest state-of-the-art space imaging.
The artist’s impression, inspired by the sharpest ever views of the supergiant star Betelgeuse, reveals an enormous plume of gas almost as big as our own Solar System blasting outwards.
The discoveries, revealed by the latest techniques on the European Space Agency’s Very Large Telescope, could help unravel why the mammoth plasma ball spews out material at such an incredible speed.
Almost 1,000 times larger than our sun, Betelgeuse is the second largest star in the constellation of Orion and one of the biggest stars known to man.
The red supergiant is also one of the most luminous stars, emitting 100,000 times more light than the Sun.
For decades, astronomers have struggled to explain how the mysterious red supergiants expel such vast amounts of material. They can shed the mass of the Sun in just 10,000 years.
One theory was that the loss could be shed from areas above the star’s polar caps as they rotate.
But the two teams, who have studied the supergiant with the NACO and AMBER instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, have concluded that it is powerful gas motions within the star that force out the huge mass of gas.
The resulting image approaches the theoretical limit of resolution possible with the 8-metre telescope. It is so sharp it could even spot a tennis ball on the International Space Station from Earth.
‘Thanks to these outstanding images, we have detected a large plume of gas extending into space from the surface of Betelgeuse,’ lead researcher Pierre Kervella from the Paris Observatory told the website PhysOrg.
The plume bursts out to at least six times the diameter of the star - about the distance from Sun to Neptune.
‘This is a clear indication that the whole outer shell of the star is not shedding matter evenly in all directions,’ adds Kervella.
Keiichi Ohnaka from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, said: 'Our AMBER observations are the sharpest observations of any kind ever made of Betelgeuse.
'Moreover, we detected how the gas is moving in different areas of Betelgeuse’s surface - the first time this has been done for a star other than the Sun.
Combined, the unrivalled observations have led the astronomers to propose that these large-scale gas motions roiling under Betelgeuse’s red surface are behind the ejection of the massive plume into space.
A giant, anvil-shaped cloud bubbles up towards the Earth's stratosphere, looming over West Africa.The amazing formation would be invisible to anyone on the ground and would even be obscure from a regular passenger jet since they can reach up to 75,000ft.But astronauts captured the astonishing picture from hundreds of miles up as they orbited the globe on the International Space Station.Anvil clouds are formed mostly from ice and normally form in the upper parts of thunderstorms. They get their shape from the fact that rising warm air in thunderstorms expands and spreads out as the air bumps up against the bottom of the stratosphere.Streaks of snow are often seen falling out of the edges of anvils. This light snow usually evaporates as it falls through the relatively dry air surrounding the upper part of the thunderstorm.
Images released today showed Tom Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy doing final maintenance work on the exterior of the complex ahead of their departure today.The four-hour and 54-minute procedure involved rewiring, camera setup, tidying cables and installing handrails and a portable foot restraint to aid future spacewalkers.The five spacewalks together spanned a total of 30 hours.The team from the visiting Endeavour shuttle fitted Japan's new outdoor experiments platform with television cameras, completing the final task for the £1.45 billion Kibo complex.'Congratulations, you guys just completed the ... assembly,' Mission Control radioed once the second camera was secured.'I can verify from up close it is, indeed, a beautiful laboratory.'Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts are inspecting their ship to make sure it's safe for Friday's landing.The survey of the wings and nose, being conducted Wednesday morning, is standard before a shuttle returns to Earth.Nasa wants to make sure Endeavour's heat shield was not pierced by micrometeorites or space junk during its two weeks in orbit. The astronauts used a laser-tipped boom to check for damage.Endeavour and its crew of seven left the international space station Tuesday.As the inspection was under way, an unmanned Russian vessel carrying several-thousand pounds of supplies docked at the station. Commander Gennady Padalka had to manually guide the craft in because of a problem with its automatic system.
Snapshots of water-filled balloons bursting figure as amazingly frozen moments in time. Granted, they also bring back memories of when you were a young scamp, mischievously dropping water bombs on hapless cyclists from overpasses, or soaking whole streets in drive-by drench-athons – but those days of innocence are gone now. So, it just leaves us to sit back and wonder at the beautiful physics of the things – as well as the devilish uses to which they can be put.
In a general sense it’s all to do with pressure – like peer pressure, but without the wicked little peers saying stuff like, “go on, soak the suckers, or we’ll soak you”. Yes, pressure. The pressure of the point of the pin, needle or whatever else it is that exerts force on the balloon, and the high pressure of the water inside the balloon, which is suddenly allowed to disperse. Since the water cannot all escape from the tiny hole pricked in the elastic material, it bursts to even out the pressure.
But enough talk; let’s see some shots of a water bomb bursting in sequence. A dart is let fly en route to puncture a balloon…
When the dart pierces the skin of its target, the balloon creases as it starts to split open, while ripples in the water’s surface tension begin to appear.
The water’s effervescence becomes more turbulent as it bulges, making its escape, even as the latex of the balloon surrenders to gravity.
Then there’s the magic moment from a photographic point of view, the instant when the water, shorn of its rubbery mould, still holds its roughly pear-shaped form…
…Before collapsing in a shower of water droplets.
s with so many things that are meant to be fun, some folks seem to take it all so very seriously. Throwing techniques include: not tying the water balloon closed but instead just twisting the end a few times so water begins to squirt out on the flight path; and overfilling the balloon so there’s enough weight and water to cause a good soaking even if it explodes on the ground. There are even accessories called ‘water balloon launchers’ as well as different types of nozzles and valves, all brought to you by a variety of money spinning manufacturers.
Maybe we’re traditionalists here at EG, but give us any balloons and we’re away, off on a journey of mischief and mayhem. Yes, we know you’re not supposed to use standard air balloons because they’re meant to be too thick, but when you’re holding a water bomb as big as a watermelon, no matter how hard to handle it may be, you know you’re going to cause a splash if it’s dropped from a great height. Oh yes.
It shows off a rainbow of colours to impress nearby females by fanning out two brightly patterned flaps at the back of his body.
